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Topic: Noelanders Trophy 2012 Photos. (Read 4306 times)

Here's a link to 175 photos I took at this weekend's Noelanders Trophy in Belgium. This is Europe's largest and best attended bonsai show, drawing entries from all the major European players.

I visited yesterday and spent a very pleasant couple of hours seeing not only great trees, but getting to meet and chat with some of their owners - Walter Pall, Tony Tickle, Mauro, Pater Warren, Graham Potter etc.

Thanks guys - I assumed you'd like it; you were not alone - my photos have been viewed 90,000 times since Saturday - with each photo being viewed by roughly 500 people. I put this down to the fact that I was there at 10am in the morning when it opened, took my photos and got the hell out of there by 12. Three hours later I was home and uploaded the photos in no time. The technology is actually to the point where I could have done some form of live broadcast - simply by using my smartphone. However, it would probably have been prohibitively expensive, since I was roaming in Belgium and my home is in Holland.

This bit of Europe is small, the distance from Amsterdam to this old mining town in Belgium is 110 miles - and I only had to drive 90 miles from Amsterdam before I hit the Belgian border. The border between the two countries is open and there's only a sign at the side of the road to indicate you're entering the other country (and that the speed limits are different :-) )...

Anyway - here are a couple of better photos of the two trees I bought.